Monday, February 28, 2005

"Liberty is something that you have to guard and we could be in danger of losing it." Barbara Follett

Independent "Barbara Follett has joined a growing Labour backbench rebellion against the Bill to allow house arrest for suspected terrorists, saying supporting it would "dishonour" Steve Biko and her murdered first husband, both civil rights activists in South Africa.Mrs Follett abstained when 32 Labour MPs voted against the Government on the Bill last week but says she would now vote against it. Other MPs who abstained are also threatening to vote against the Bill if Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, fails to satisfy them with concessions today...In a sideswipe at two ministers backing the Bill, Mrs Follett told BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend: "Patricia Hewitt [the Secretary of State for Trade] and Harriet Harman [the Solicitor General] were bugged by MI5 in the 1980s. If we had had this law, who knows what would have happened? Liberty is something that you have to guard and we could be in danger of losing it."."